Five Games I'm Horribly Ashamed Of Never Finishing

Piles of shame, by definition, are shameful. But while untouched games in cellophane taunt and beckon , there's a special circle of torment reserved for the games we started, but didn't finish. Games we enjoyed, maybe even loved, but abandoned before completion.

It's too late now! We can't go back. Too much time has passed... things have changed, we have changed. The world has moved on yet we — a couple of hours shy of resolution — have to live with the fact that we have left an incredible game unfinished. We've tarnished a holistic experience and we're bad bad people.

I may be one of the worst offenders. With too many games and too little time, I start almost every major release yet seldom finish them. Among these hundreds, however, are a handful of games that resonate — games I am genuinely ashamed I gave up on. These are the top five.

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

The Year: 2003
Where I Quit: The stupid triforce quest where you have to scour the seas for some ungodly reason.

Why I Quit
I was living in Japan when Wind Waker was released and it was torture. In every video game store I visited oodles of Wind Wakers stared back at me. Incomprehensible, written in a language I couldn't understand. I had a GameCube, but I couldn't buy Wind Waker. If ever a series required that you actually understand dialogue, or instructions, or the written word in general, it was Zelda.

When it was finally released in Europe, I made a quick call to my brother, who had already started playing it.

"I'll send you a copy over," he said, enthusiastically. "I'm halfway through it and it's the best Zelda ever!"

Bizarrely my brother's enthusiasm began to wane in subsequent phone calls. I didn't understand why and he wouldn't explain. "Just keep playing," he would say. So I did.

The first half of Wind Waker is an incredible voyage of discovery, literally. The art style is timeless, when all is said and done it may be the best looking video game of all time. The early dungeon design, too, is peerless. But once your momentum is steam rolling and your bracing yourself for three or four more incredible dungeon experiences, the game does a bait and switch. You are no longer heading into the unknown, exploring terrifying structures, marvelling at holistic design. You are engaging in a glorified fetch quest. WHAT?

I persevered for a while, but it was all too much. I had to walk away.

Why I Can Never Go Back
Well, I actually did go back. Twice in fact. I played the entire game through another two times, with the full intention of trying to complete the game. I did so because most of my friends were quick to tell me that Wind Waker's conclusion was worth the effort. But by that time I just couldn't muster the enthusiasm. Hopefully the new HD re-release for the Wii U will convince me to give it one final go.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

The Year: 2009
Where I Quit: At some random section in the game's final third

Why I Quit
The reason I quit Batman: Arkham Asylum — arguably the game of 2011, and one of the greatest super hero games ever made — is stupid. Pathologically stupid. On a number of levels.

I got stuck.

Not only did I get stuck, I got stubborn. And I decided to stick to one of the painfully arbritary rules I devised for myself when I was ten years old and playing A Link to the Past on the SNES: no guidebooks allowed.

So I was stuck. I couldn't find a way forward. My pride wouldn't allow myself to head to GameFAQs like a normal person and find the solution, so I spent hours walking in circles until I could take no more and I bailed out.

Why I Can Never Go Back
A year later I tried to finish off Batman: Arkham Asylum, but it was nigh on impossible. Jumping two thirds into the game, completely blind and minus all the context and understanding of where the hell I was meant to be going and why, was almost impossible. Even if I did use GameFAQs (and I did) all the joy of following Arkham Asylum's strictly designed world was sucked from the bone. I would have had to start the game from scratch and that seemed like too much of a time investment.

Shadow of the Colossus

The Year: 2005
Where I Quit: The tenth colossus (I think)

Why I Quit
I really have no idea. Well, I have some idea. It was mostly because I rented the game from Blockbuster in Scotland and I only had a couple of days to play through it.

I raced through the first four or five colossus, entranced by the universe. I loved the care put into the simple things — the sound of flipping through the menu, the atmosphere. The way everything moved. I really fell in love with Shadow of the Colossus, but I specifically remember one colossus giving me a little bit of trouble — I think it was the Sand Tiger, the tenth colossus.

Whereas earlier colossus seemed to telegraph their weak points, the game slowly but surely began to disguise them, making each new boss increasingly more difficult to 'solve' and defeat. Time was ticking and eventually I had to trudge back to Blockbuster, game in hand, and admit defeat.

Why I Can Never Go Back
Again, I did go back. I picked up the HD re-release of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. I played up until the Sea Dragon until new releases distracted me. I never went back.

Sob.

Fez

The Year: 2012
Where I Quit: At roughly 26 cubes collected

Why I quit
Enjoyment of Fez has three very specific stages. The first begins with a dumb sense of wonder and empowerment. The process of understanding the mechanics of Fez, the act of simply manipulating the world and solving puzzles is a genuinely uplifting experience. I fell in love with the game almost instantly.

The second stage is the feeling of being lost and the dread that feeling inspires. All of a sudden Fez feels a little bit claustrophobic and scary. You have no idea where you are and no idea how to get back. The map system is convoluted and terrifying. It's so far from user friendly that it almost appears as though Phil Fish wanted to give players the feeling of being stranded in a strange universe with no means of escape.

The third level of enjoyment is mastery of that universe. The ultimate understanding of the game and how it works, how the worlds are intersected, how to navigate the world freely.

I quit just as I was heading towards that third level of mastery and I still don't know why.

I think I might have given up because the game was becoming a little too difficult. And by that I mean that collecting the cubes wasn't as easy as it was to begin with, and the game became more about staring at the map, trying to figure out where I should head next as opposed to gaily skipping through the world without a care in the world. That was the stage I enjoyed the most — the first stage.

Why I Can Never Go Back
I'm lost. And so very scared and alone.

Metroid Prime

The Year: 2003
Where I Quit: The Omega Pirate boss battle

Why I Quit
I left this one until last because it's the one I'm most ashamed of. Metroid Prime is probably my favourite game of the last ten years, but for some reason I never actually finished it. That sounds crazy, but it's true.

I can't really explain why I quit. The Omega Pirate boss battle is difficult, but not as difficult (apparently) as the boss battles that come afterwards. For some reason I attempted to kill the Omega Pirate roughly five times before giving up and never returning. It may have been something to do with the sparse set of save points, it may have been simple weakness on my part, but for some strange reason I gave up at that point and never returned.

I am so ashamed.

More than any other game, Metroid Prime represents for me the pain and regret of leaving an incredible game unfinished. Not only did I do myself the disservice of not exploring new areas, or enjoying everything the game had to offer, I robbed myself of the holistic experience an incredible video game can provide. I left one of my favourite games of all time unfinished, and that makes me feel a little sad.

I got stuck in Atlantis at the part where you need to use the circular stones to open the doorway. I'd somehow gotten there without collecting all of them - my first encounter with a game breaking bug.

My shame pile for the Gamecube is huge also - but I was able to finish Wind Waker and Metroid Prime. To be honest you are not really missing out on much on Wind Waker but Metroid was insane. It will be harder to go back and finish last gen games.

This might be because I started doing the 'retro' thing when the N64 was new, but I really can't see anything released later than the snes as being retro. My definition hasn't been correct since probably 2000 of course.

On topic though, there's only a couple I can think of that really belong this list for me. Resident Evil 4 and Metroid Prime 3. Got half way through each of them, thoroughly enjoyed what I played of both. RE4 I was stuck for ages in the upstairs of a building with guys climbing up ladders from the outside. Didn't have enough ammo or something. Came back a couple of years later and beat that part, but only made a little more progress before getting distracted. MP3 I really have no excuses.

Worst thing is that I loved and finished Metroid Prime 1 and 2, and Resident Evil 5 (several times!). So I know I would love them both if I did go back. But so many games...

Which leads to my biggest gaming shame: it's not the games I've started and given up on, it's the ones I've bought, want to play, but haven't even started. Don't get me started on that list (I have a spreadsheet of them).

Resident Evil 4 I definitely struggled with. I persevered and I managed to finish it eventually, but I found some parts of that game incredibly difficult. By contrast though I didn't find RE5 particularly hard at all.

I played Final Fantasy X right up till the final boss. Then he got hard, crazy hard, and I struggled more against that boss than I did with any other. Then I got bored and left it, never to return.
Occasionally my mind still wanders back to that moment where I was so close to finishing the game before giving up.

Once you get past Seymour Flux the entire game is a downhill stroll. I had to grind so hard and even then I only got lucky. I didn't have any ultimate/limit break weapons so I was capped at 9999 damage, and as you'll recall once you get him below 10,000 HP he uses an attack which wipes your whole party.

Second Torchlight. As for the others... You Monster.
(Er... doesn't count that I didn't finish STALKER: Clear Sky.)

It was a joy to me that I didn't really need to have finished Torchlight to really enjoy Torchlight 2. (Gawd. I first played it a couple days ago and was horrified to discover that I was up to an insane hour, eyes bleeding, head nodding, but determined to explore this last area just a little more, hoover up all the loot before finally returning to town to--OH GOD WHY IS THERE ANOTHER QUEST?)

In all honesty, the WW fetch quests didn't bother me that much. I think I only really had to spend abput half an hour to get the remaining pieces that were actually out of my way. And yes, the ending was totally worth it.

I stopped Fez when I got stuck at that section where you're trying to get the skull and had to walk through a million different doorways. I had all the maps and I even looked up how you're meant to work through them but it still didn't work for me.

although i just recently finished fez 100% (209.5%) there were a few moments where if the internet didn't exist i may have stopped or at least walked around the world infinitely without making any progress. and for anyone who has completed it i will just say i played, as i do with all games, with vibration turned off, so i was always going to have trouble with some anticubes. disappointing though as guiding that game really ruins it, but is essential when you get to the heart cubes. but none-the-less i absolutely loved the 170 odd percent i got through without it, getting stumped with the tuning forks, the clock and the bell.

I gave up on Metroid Prime at the final boss. Not really ashamed since i figure that I'd seen all the game had to offer by then.
I think I abandoned Metroid Prime 2 about halfway through, but learned my lesson and didn't even buy the third one.

I, too, have never finished the glorious experience that was the first Metroid Prime, despite having finished the third and other m.
I got stuck on the final boss, the tiualar Metroid Prime, and could never get the timing right.
However, the game I'm most ashamed of not finishing is XCOM Enemy Unknown.
I have breeched the mothership and have started the final mission, but now I am frozen with fear of losing my team. They're already struggling under their feeble commander and I'm not even halfway through the ship yet.
I will get back to it, but I also picked up FarCry 3 and that is an absorbing game, too.

The final boss, Metroid Prime, was honestly not that hard. The boss before him, Meta Ridley (which I don't think is a spoiler since it's obvious the game builds up to it) is a lot harder IMO, and if you managed to beat him you shouldn't have had any problems with Metroid Prime.

It's been a long time since I finished WW so I don't really remember the fetch quest much. But, I do implore you to work up the courage to finish WW, AA, SotC and MP, because they are all incredible games. MP especially.

Man Metroid Prime gosh golly if you think Omega Pirate was heard, try fighting the penultimate boss in MP2. That took me so long but I was damned if I was going to let it stop me.

You've actually got a pretty good list there. Arkham Asylum, Wind Waker and Metroid Prime are all pretty great (and I've 100%'d them all, save the Tingle Brothers trophy in WW). I always wanted to play SOTC but never had the opportunity.

I recommend playing the Trilogy version of Metroid Prime on the Wii; the controls definitely made those tricky boss battles a little easier. Plus, you get widescreen! And achievement-based unlockables! Hooray!
As for me...... Mirror's Edge. I really gotta get back to it sometime.

Yeah, I love that game. You're right - early levels are the best because they're also the purest - all about running as fast as you can, timing the jumps / slides right, and basically just keep moving at all costs. The later levels had a tendency to get bogged down in substandard shootouts and irritatingly overcomplex platforming bits that required a bit too much standing around and looking at stuff trying to figure out HOW to get to the top. The early sections were just instinctive, seat of the pants stuff - just run and jump and keep on running which really got the adrenaline flowing.

God. Truth. The early levels ARE the best for their free-running instinctive purity. Stopping and paying attention to what suicidal things you're about to do breaks flow and was the worst part of the game for me, and why it remains incompleted in my pile of shame.

I definitely broke character for the shooting. To my mind, Faith didn't shoot the baddies. But as soon as I got my hands on a gun, she stopped being Faith. She turned into that murderous, buzz-haired, square-jawed, white space marine that all the cool kids want to move games away from. (Great. Now I won't be able to relate to video game characters anymore!)

The Speed Runs in Mirrors Edge are quite different to single player simply by virtue of removing all of the story elements and enemies. It's just you trying to find the quickest , most efficient path through the environment (and there are a lot more paths than might be apparent in the single player) and attempting to beat your own time or others on the high score list. You can even download ghosts of other players to race against.

In all honesty, I think they'd have been far better to release the game as an expanded version of these modes, more like a Tony Hawk sports game typed deal and ditched the story entirely.

Super Mario Bros (furthest I ever got was level 8... when I was 10)
Final Fantasy X (I was literally up to the level where SIN is and my PS2 laser died, never replaced it)
Dead Space
Dark Souls
Mass Effect 3 (don't ruin it for me)

Ocarina of Time ... I know I'd just gotten all three spiritual stones and unlocked the temple of time, but I can't remember exactly where I stopped.

Donkey Kong Country 2 - I remember getting up to a pirate ship and then nothing.

Zombies Run - Technically it's an app with resource management and zombies that gets you fit. Due to a bug with the version I downloaded it wouldn't let me access anything I'm picked up or move on past the third mission. Between that and moving house, I kind of forgot it till I was cleaning up my phone and remembered.

The Walking Dead - Long story short ... It's all installed on my computer and I'm about halfway through episode two but I just can't force myself to power through the remainder and I don't know why.

Amnesia: The dark descent - I'm a glutton for punishment and tend to play this one drunk and it gives me nightmares ... but I really did enjoy the story from what I played and some of the mods/custom maps look amazing.

On the flip side of this article in the "things I finished and am damned proud of" pile, I've only got one thing. Beating Battletoads all alone when I was a youngling

Oh man, DKC2?
If the last level you got up to was a pirate ship then it was probably near the end of the third world, right before the first Bramble level. Man, at that point in the game you ain't seen nothin' yet.
DKC2 is best game.

I know, man. I know. But I spent over an hour trying this bit again and again (even resorting to online guides, which offered little help), and just loathed it. I know it gets better after that, but I just couldn't care anymore. That part is an abomination, a big black eye for gaming in general.

Never finished Prince of Persia Sands of Time simply because i got stuck on a level and had no clue how to do it (and never through to use game faqs or anything back then. still bothers me i never finished it because i loved the game. I did go back to it but by that time i was still getting stuck and i just wanted to be playing a new game.

Why don't I remember this fetch quest?? I finished wind waker and it would be my favourite zelda of all time if OoT didn't have so much nostalgia power... I remember the awful main dungeon rehashing of phantom hour glass (which i persevered) but I cannot recall this wind waker triforce quest that everyone complains about?? maybe there is more nostalgia power in wind waker than i realised!

I never got why people complained about that sidequest so much. Sure, I suppose some people might consider their time "valuable", but It's not exactly that long. It takes about an hour from having no charts, to getting all of them and finding the pieces, should you have enough rupees. I suppose that if you don't have the rupees, it's another story, but I've always had enough, and I've played Wind Waker about 15 times.

I think if people went back they'd realise it's a pretty big overeaction to a fairly smooth quest. My friends and I do this all the time actually, we go back and do a run through of some old game and afterwards discussion will inevitably come to,
'I was suprised by X, I remember X being really boring/annoying/long, but X was in fact easy/short/added Y to the game,' or the opposite of this, remembering something being good and it being kinda.. meh. This happens especially with certain Nintendo games (Seriously, Water Temple isn't as bad as you think), and my theory is that in the case of wind waker, it's such a great game that the few not so great (but not bad) parts tend to stand out like a sore thumb.

Final Fantasy VIIII got up to the boss fight where Rinoa is trapped in Sorceress Adel, after the fight with Seifer's lackeys, but I couldn't beat the boss. I could only beat the boss using attacks that also harmed Rinoa, and if I attacked just Adel, it would absorb Rinoa 'till she died. I lost to that boss about 20 times, then I gave up. I have no real interest in finishing the game, though, since I don't remember anything I really liked about it.

FF9 is a similar one for me. Got through the game with no probs whatsover, get to the final boss and can't last more than a few minutes. Rage quit 25 times, never went back. I swear the the whole game sets you up to fail that boss.

If you do go back to it... Cast Zombie on Rinoa. Adel drains Rinoa and takes damage instead, might even heal Rinoa at the same time.... Pretty easy fight, I remember being stuck on it for a long time too.

That's... a pretty good idea. Unfortunately, I don't own the game any more, and it's been years since I last played it, that I couldn't just jump back in from where I left off. I'll probably get it at some point in the future, and I'll keep that in mind. Thanks.

FEZ im at about 170%, but it started to hurt having to try work out some of those puzzles, and after a few days my brain just melted, havent gone back due to pure intimmidation.

Arkham asylum - twice now i've gotten about 90% through the main story, and then my steam save has corrupted, i just cant do it again.

My biggest shame is FF8 its my favourite FF game, on par with FF6, i've played FF8 through to the 4th disk 8 times, and i shit you not each time i get to the 4th disk, someone breaks it, or loses it, or scratches it ot it just disappears.

i have 8 copies of FF8 all missing disk 4, i also have 3 copies of FF7 all missing disk 3.

i definitely feel with fez if i played through it again i would have worked out at least one more puzzle on my own (the clock area), that and the pangram room, those animals would have seemed out of place on a second playthrough.

if you ever get back into it would recommend asking someone who has finished it to give you pointers without spoiling it or solving it for you. wish i had that on my playthrough.

I generally try to make it a rule to finish a game before moving onto the next but I've become a little lazier in my old age with a Mound of Shame bigger than a breadbox. (Three breadboxes even!)

However, one of my biggest skeletons is Record of Agarest War which I quit at the end boss because the weapon/armour development is based on doing certain things at certain times with no way back if you miss them. Thus, you can be severely underpowered at the final boss with no way of winning. The other is Final Fantasy Tactics which I tried to start again after screwing up my saves at the battle that most people quit on but just couldn't muster the enthusiasm for again.

I fully intend to finish them... one day. Agarest I'm going to cheat a little and use DLC packs to boost my inventory rather than playing the game again.

Wind Waker was the only game from last gen that i did finish! Though I needed to consult the internet on the fetch quest.

Didn't finish

Super Mario Sunshine
Can't get through the Lava Cave where you have to ride those wooden boats.

Metroid Prime
Quit in the second level whetr you face that boss (and get killed) and you're thtien bsck to the start of the goddamn level!!! What kind of sadist designed that

MGS2
Made the mistake of selecting the wrong thing in the menu and starting as Raiden, when i had to go around difusing bombs I ran into areas with a lot of guards and yet had no weapons at my disposal.

"Metroid Prime
Quit in the second level whetr you face that boss (and get killed) and you're thtien bsck to the start of the goddamn level!!! What kind of sadist designed that"

Pretty typical of games not this generation. I miss decently spaced checkpoints, just the other day I was playing DmC thinking how stupid this generations system tends to be, if I went into a boss battle with 25% or less hp, I'd just kill myself knowing the checkpoint would be the start of the battle with full health, there's no need to ever use an item yet they're implemented anyway? No game should ever encourage you to die when the overall aim of the game is to do the exact opposite. That's equally shitty game design as having to redo a level, and that's without touching on the complete lack of tension 'regular' checkpoints brings to the table.

There are ways to lessen the pain of that. For example reaching the room before the boss (which you know is the room before the boss as you've done it before), then backtracking to the nearest save point. So if you were to die, you don't need to do the whole section again, you just need to run through the area back to where you were. It would take you maybe 2 minutes instead of 20.

It's not that painful and personally I prefer it that way, rather than having an auto save point right before the boss (or even in the middle of the boss fight), because it actually creates a real fear inside you of "I better not screw this up".

If you were having trouble, exploring some more and looking for some items you may have missed like health tanks and missiles would probably make the fight a lot easier. Although, if you quit on one of the early bosses in Metroid Prime, which are pretty easy all things considered (they don't start getting even remotely difficult until towards the end of the game), perhaps the game wasn't for you anyway.

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